


the only one left

by cwtchbuddy



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Best Friends, Crying, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 20:38:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7589233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cwtchbuddy/pseuds/cwtchbuddy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is nobody else Yifan can run to. Yixing's arms are wide open.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the only one left

"You're a pain." Yixing says the words under his breath, knowing the person he's saying them to is barely listening to him and that he doesn't really mean it.

"I'm so sorry, Yixing. So sorry." Yifan keeps apologizing, sentences fusing into one in a mess of jumbled words that basically say he's sorry. They flow out of his mouth without his control, his brain registering the hands that soap his body to remove the stench of vomit from his skin as he sits on the tub in Yixing's bathroom. He knows he should be embarrassed but this is Yixing, his best friend and the only person he can run to so he says just that. 

"You're the only one left." And as soon as the words–though garbled–leave his mouth, sobs start to rack his chest and the gentle hands stop from moving on his front to caress his back instead. Unconsciously he keeps repeating the words with tear streaks running down his cheeks, the same ones Yixing has just washed minutes ago. He hears the other speak but he can't really understand what his best friend is saying, they're just a clump of syllables that his brain cannot process correctly but Yixing's voice is soothing–it always has been–and that's enough to calm him down. The hands on his back only move to his chest again when he's stopped sobbing, resuming their work to cleanse the rest of his body before opening the shower again to rinse off the soap suds.

Yixing watches Yifan as the taller male sits cramped in his bathtub, head supported on the side of the tub as he washes off the remaining bubbles from the elder's body. His heart constricts when he sees his best friend like this. The usual cool and collected Yifan, broken into pieces and painful to restore but he doesn’t mind the wounds the shards cut into his skin. He looks at the head lolling over the side of his tub and reaches for it, knowing what the other means and how heavy those few words are.

_You are the only one left._

It has been a month since Yifan's mother died, the only close relative he has left. _Lung cancer._ If you ask Yixing he'll say he saw it coming. Not that he's psychic. It's just that the woman smoked two packs a day. It was bound to happen.

If he had not been there to look after Yifan, his best friend might have gone down the same path. He remembers snatching a lit stick from the taller one's lips when he saw him smoking by the entrance of his new apartment, the elder telling him he got tired of waiting and didn't know where the spare key was. Yixing begged him then to stop smoking, that it's bad for his health, that there are other ways to cope with stress–healthier ones. Yifan tried, very hard. He started schooling himself not to smoke when Yixing is around. Slowly, he weaned himself off the nicotine and five weeks later he learns of his mother's illness. He wasn't sure then–still isn't sure until now–if he was glad he had stopped smoking because he was torn between lighting a stick again and not doing so in fears of having the same sickness. In the end he didn’t smoke one, instead he drove to Yixing and cried on the younger's shirt–something he will never do in front of anybody else.

 

Once he has dried him off, Yixing struggles to bring the larger body to his room. With years of experience of taking care of his best friend especially whenever _this_ happened, one would have thought that the smaller male has learned a thing or two on how to lug his best friend around to where he wants to bring him. But no experience can help Yixing, especially when the elder is easily twice his weight. Using all his strength, he helps the other on his side, trying to make him walk as much as he can without hitting the door frames and anything that might break and make Yixing crying instead. With much difficulty and a lot of cursing, he finally lays his best friend on the bed, the naked body instantly curling in on itself as the younger stalks off to his wardrobe to find some of Yifan's clothes that has collected in his dresser. They have stacked up over time, after many sleepovers and game nights. He reaches for a pair of boxers, knowing Yifan sleeps with nothing but his undergarments, always complaining about it being too hot even in the middle of winter. He suspects his best friend is actually a furnace and not a human being, but he will never say that out loud, at least not in front of other people. He doesn't want other people hogging his furnace. Yixing walks back into the room, to find his best friend still in a fetal position, butt naked. He laughs to himself for a little before walking over to stretch those long legs and pull the pair of flimsy underwear over them.

To other people, this might look weird but the two of them have grown together, sharing the shower many times before since they were children. If there was something they don't know, it's shame, only whenever they're together though, alone with no other friends to tease them, telling them if they didn't know better they'd assume Yifan and Yixing were a married couple. But they've never really crossed the line of friendship even with the overfamiliarity and excessive skinship that even real couples might get jealous of. And Yixing is half-afraid of the consequences if he allows the words to spill out from his mouth and change everything they have built together as friends. The younger shakes off the thought in favour of preparing himself to go back to bed, to his sleep that his best friend interrupted an hour ago.

Yixing hears the elder mumble in his sleep and with the distance between them, he can't quite make out what Yifan is saying. Before taking his place on the bed–if there's still space after the large body has taken over it–he decides to remove his shirt, the clothing soaked because of the shower he gave Yifan. Seeing and feeling wet spots on the knees of his sweats, he pulls them down as well and shoots them in the hamper before finally sitting on the bed in nothing but his briefs, carefully moving the taller one's body so they both can fit in the bed. 

Yixing can take the couch if he wants to but he knows this is where he _needs_ to be–beside Yifan. The elder must have felt the bed dip in his daze because he started scooting towards the edge of the bed to make space for Yixing to be as comfortable as possible, wrapping an arm around the smaller one's waist before pulling him close, his face buried in the younger's neck. With nothing but a few centimeters separating them, he finally makes out what Yifan is saying. Yifan is still mumbling and the other can't help but place a hand over the strong arm draped over his stomach, caressing it as he uses his other hand to push the taller male's head closer to him, leaning his head down to kiss the crown of the other's head, an instant reaction to a vulnerable Yifan. The grip around his waist is tight, painful even as he feels the other's laboured breathing against his shoulder. The body beside him relaxes, the hand loosens and the breath tickling the skin of his neck evens out when Yixing finally responds to the elder’s whispered plea, fingers carding through Yifan's hair as he speaks.

"I'm here. I'll always be here."


End file.
